131 comments:

If you are the man in combat risking your life to - yes kill a man - who needed and deserved killing, then I got no problem with you bragging, but if you sat safe and secure and made the decision to have others do it, when you really had no other option, then no you should not be bragging about what you did, because you did nothing.

I suspect there were more than a few Republicans on the SEAL team that actually did the job of killing Bin Laden. I wonder how they feel about Obama politicizing their accomplishment by not only bragging about it, but actually suggesting in an ad that his GOP opponent would not have given the kill order.

Althouse is quoting Jaltoch is quoting either Peter Baker or Michael D. Shear. McCain is just a proxy for them.

(Cross-posted at Jaltoch.)

Obama trumpeting the killing of Bin Laden in the political season is like Bush's "mission accomplished" but with far more culpability. U.S. soldiers are still in Afghanistan in an unnecessary conflict that Obama promoted as a cynical means to differentiate himself from Bush and McCain.

The only thing more disappointing than that is Romney's attempt to go right on Obama's proposed drawdown.

Hah - They had to drag him in off the golf course to view the video of the slaughter.

Osama bin Laden, the terrorist genius created in our minds by the CIA, was never a large player in the terrorism that we went to war against. According to Angelo Codevilla, someone had to be made the face of terrorism, so a very tall Saudi who looked good riding a horse was selected.

As reported by Big Peace, Time magazine has obtained a memo written by Leon Panetta, then-director of the Central Intelligence Agency and now-Secretary of Defense, that says "operational decision-making and control" was really in the hands of William McRaven, a three-star admiral and former Navy SEAL.

"The timing, operational decision-making and control are in Adm. McRaven's hands," the memo says. "The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the president. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the president for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and, if he is not there, to get out."

In other words, it was McRaven's call to pull the trigger or not on the raid...

The Panetta memo, rather than presenting a profile in courage, says "approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the president." This left enough wiggle room to blame the operation planners and controllers if the raid had gone as wrong as President Jimmy Carter's famous failure to rescue American hostages held by Iran. This memo left room for the blame for another "Blackhawk Down" snafu to be blamed on anyone and everyone but President Obama.

Hey, doesn't all this bragging risk "inciting violence" from certain quarters? I thought we weren't supposed to "spike the football"-- isn't that what Obama said?

But I guess since the "war on terror" is over now, there's nothing to worry about. Spike that football and do a funky dance, Barack.

But don't forget, as a champion basking in the glory of your deed, to give a "shout out" of thanks to the little people who helped you, if only indirectly, to achieve your brave courageous awesome feat. Like, oh, the Seal Team Six. Or the intelligence officials who, over years (and two adminstrations) finally tracked Osama down (and whom, if Holder et al had had their druthers, might have been prosecuted for some of their efforts).

Obama doesn't thank or acknowledge the little people. They have a purpose, of course, but it's not something to acknowledge, it's merely to be used and discarded as needed. If you look at the picture of Obama in the room watching the raid, you see the small insignificance of him as a person. He does not appear to be a person who just made the most difficult decision any president in the history of the world ever made. He appears to be what he is, a small man looking on while others take charge. Maybe it's all appearance, but it's not flattering and his bragging after the fact is just disgusting.

wyo sis, I always got that impression from the photograph too. Of course, it's just a photograph and impressions can be deceiving. But it's creepy to see a POTUS, at a moment like that, shrinking in his chair in the back of the room, like a scared sullen kid who just doesn't want to be there.

Osama bin Laden, the terrorist genius created in our minds by the CIA, was never a large player in the terrorism that we went to war against. According to Angelo Codevilla, someone had to be made the face of terrorism, so a very tall Saudi who looked good riding a horse was selected.

Well, if Angelo Codevilla said it, it must be true. Yes, the whole Osama Bin Laden story was just created by Ruling Class liberals as part of their snobby oppression of fine, decent Country Class Americans.

And I saw somewhere that a Swedish magazine contends that War Room photo has him Photoshopped in.

Well, if a Swedish magazine said it, that's gotta be true too!

You'll sometimes hear people claim that there's a lot of dumb and false things said on the internet. One wonders why anyone would claim such a thing.

gadfly wrote:Osama bin Laden, the terrorist genius created in our minds by the CIA...

The point of being a gadfly is to write something with sting in it, to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable -- not to write something that makes us think you're just another credulous doofus with broadband.

"I'm sorry too, Dimitri. I'm very sorry. Alright! You're sorrier than I am! But I am sorry as well. I am as sorry as you are, Dimitri. Don't say that you are more sorry than I am, because I am capable of being just as sorry as you are."

Yeah, just noting it, I'm sure. Why mention that claim if it wasn't something you thought worth informing other people about? Also, you're the one who followed the little notation with the comment "They prosecute people for stuff like this". But it was just a notation.

Anyway, nice walkback there, chieftain. Maybe next you can tell us another story. How about that one regarding Andy Warhol's failed career as a weatherman in Indiana? That was a great story and we can all use a few good laughs. Heaven knows, you certainly provide the comic relief.

obama didn't kill bin laden, and it is particularly nervy of obama to so state.

the most obama can state is that obama had bin laden killed. i do agree that bragging about having a human being killed is more than passing strange.

But if Obama did kill Bin Laden as he claims - if the act of giving an order is to kill the person on the other rend of the order, then Obama has also killed thousands or tens of thousands of other people.

How does he fell about that? He's killed thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of people.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent four years ago, lashed out at the Web video, saying the president was turning “the one decision he got right into a pathetic, political act of self-congratulation.” He added, “Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad.”

McCain is right but he's an idiot, or at least horribly bad at campaign tactics. And you'd have to be horribly bad to be worse than Obama, he's also horribly bad at campaign tactics.

Bragging about killing your enemy is obviously a "pathetic, political act of self-congratulation." You don't have to point out the obvious. Why engage in your own political attack while your opponent is shooting himself in the foot?

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." Napoleon said that.

I notice that Mitt Romney is saying nothing about Obama and the killing of bin Laden. He's high road (smart), focused on the economy (smart), and giving Obama all the rope he needs to hang himself (smart).

Does bragging about killing a man impress the ladies? I say no.

How does reminding voters (and women!) that Obama is just as involved in the war on terror as George W. Bush help Obama? All this does is depress his liberal base and make them want to stay home. And if you're actually concerned about national security, who thinks Obama is the guy to face down Iran over nukes?

With my stated antipathy towards execution, I would hope Mr. Obama be remorseful that a person had to die. As a patriot, I'm glad Osama's dead. I would have preferred he had been captured and sentenced to a life of imprisonment. That way, he would act as a Judas Goat to lure more terrorists for our capture.

Just think, Osama on a desert isle, in a block cell surrounded by high concrete walls topped with concertina. Ringing the walls with remote, or robot controlled chain guns, programmed to shoot the ass off a dragonfly.

Every weekend, boat to the isle, and drag the bodies out to sea for shark chum.

In the Clinton commercial, Billie says it would have been awful for Obama if something went wrong.

No mention of the dead and wounded SEALS and their families if something went wrong, just a big bump in the road to re-election.That is the barometer of all decisions and outcomes now.

If Bush and Cheney were chicken-hawks (I know they were cuz I heard it for 7 years), what does that make the Community Organizer, a guy who wouldn't last the first day in boot camp but trades in the courage of others.

Remember, withing a few days after 9/11, when Bush said that we wanted Osama 'dead or alive'.. Cowboy Bush was severely criticised and eventually seemed of the error of his ways.. When asked later towards the end of the second term by pastor Rick Warren if he could change anything, any regrets.. Bush recalled the 'wanted dead or alive' remarks.

I made the point to show how easily people believed that Zero's "gutsy call" was so much hot air.

Yeah, you made a point, alright. Unfortunately for you, it wasn't the point you say you made.

No, Stolen Valor Act. They prosecute people for claiming to have carried out military acts when they haven't.

Funny, I don't recall seeing Obama claiming to have gone in and shot Bin Laden himself or claiming to have reached a military rank that he didn't reach. That's the sort of thing that gets one prosecuted under the Stolen Valor Act. Good ramble, though.

Some phony folksy needs to tell mom he's ready for his Ovaltine.

Now, now, you're going to have to do better than that to match your normal level of comic relief. Relying on lame cliches about moms won't get you there. Come on, edutcher, tell us one of the stories that have caused us all (liberals and conservatives) to laugh at you over the years. You had one going there earlier with the Swedish photoshop story. Run with it!

I guess that I served in the military when two things were clear. The US did not assassinate foreign leaders or any individuals and if a fighter was captured, he was searched, segregated, and sped to the rear for handling. We don't know what happened but if bin Laden was unarmed and clearly not a threat he should have been captured. As was Saddam and Eichmann.Am I the only one somewhat dismayed that political assassinations are back?

This really shows the complete and utter ignorance of the Democrats about terror networks, Bin Laden, and the efforts of the Bush administration.

Bin Laden revolutionized terrorism in the '90's. But he did it in ways that Democrats - and apparently Obama himself - still don't understand. Bin Laden revolutionized the funding of terror. He created sophisticated money laundering networks to fund terrorism. His other contribution was creating looser systems of control and affiliation that allowed terror groups to leverage off of each other in terms of propaganda / ideology etc. while avoiding linkages that created security vulnerabilities.

The Bush administration spent a great deal of time, effort and political capital post 9/11 in getting the international community to cooperate in reining in the international banking and financial sector. They used a lot of good old fashioned hard work in diplomacy ( the thing that Democrats fraudulently claimed that George W. Bush was bad at ) to get the money laundering networks shut down internationally. It was the most important of the post 9/11 work, it was work that the Democrats failed to acknowledge and it was work that Obama is letting fall apart from his own incompetence.

But its why George W. Bush correctly said that Bin Laden did not matter - a comment that he was ridiculed for by those who continue to show their contempt for the best interests of the US.

Hey it's not often that a metrosexual wussie gets to claim that he's "The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden". He needs his pathetic bit of glory.

I do believe that John Bolton had it right when he said that Obama had as much to do with the killing of Osama Bin Laden as Richard Nixon had to do with the landing on the moon in 1969. The difference of course is that Tricky Dick did not dare claim that he had personally "taken one giant step for mankind".

Bill Clinton--"You know Hillybear...Shucks, I'd heard about black men not wantin' to eat pussy, But Dang! That young feller done ate him a dog! I swear..."

Jimmy Carter--"Thank you Jesus, for blessing me with Barrack Obama."

Chris Matthews--"I tell you folks, the republicans don't have a chance. You know why? Because I'm getting that tingling in my leg again, and I...and I...I...Mr. President?! He's over here! yes...the leg...again...(aside) get that damn mutt fixed

I made the point to show how easily people believed that Zero's "gutsy call" was so much hot air.

Yeah, you made a point, alright. Unfortunately for you, it wasn't the point you say you made.

Ah, but it was, that people have had a big problem buying Zero's "gutsy call" all along. Some phony folksy weasels again. This is what he gets for jumping to conclusions.

No, Stolen Valor Act. They prosecute people for claiming to have carried out military acts when they haven't.

Funny, I don't recall seeing Obama claiming to have gone in and shot Bin Laden himself or claiming to have reached a military rank that he didn't reach. That's the sort of thing that gets one prosecuted under the Stolen Valor Act. Good ramble, though.

Cute.

Zero's trying to take credit for killing bin Laden with his "gutsy call", which he didn't make.

The amusing part is that O wants us to believe that somehow his leadership took courage-- when at least ninety percent of Americans wanted bin Laden dead. Now, not killing him might have taken courage. It would have been asinine, but courageous.

I would ask Obama, should I be having supper one night with him and George Clooney, what else he has done in the last three plus years that has been in the interest of this nation.

As for his capture? He would have been squeezed into giving up that Bush actually planned the 9/11 attacks, with the help of the Bilderbergs. So the same cabal that fixed the Warren commission had their guys infiltrate Seal Team 6 so they could shut him up. Put first the DIDN'T kill UBL. They shot him with sodium penathol bullets, and questioned him first to see if he had told any of his wives the names of the assasins that were on the grassy knoll in 1963.

As you know the Bilderbergs are an off shoot of the Illuminati, that split off when they replaced George Washington with Adam Weishaupt.

Of course Washington was a "plant" to introduce marijuana smoking to the populace of America, and of more concern, France, who at that time was a great ally to the US., but a hinderance with their "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" nonsense. That posed a bigger hinderance to the Bilderbergs than they were ready for.

Now it's all gone to shit because the damn wogs are taking over France, and more importantly, the French don't bathe enough. This is a problem because the Bilderbergs were the basis of the book by Poe "The Fall of the House of Usher" and are plagued by hyper sensitivity.

Ma Maaaaaaa, I wrote a memo about killing a man but left the final decision to a three star admiral who I could throw under the bus if everything went south but who wasn't important enough that I couldn't shove aside to take the credit ... do the Fandango!

"Before you get the idea that killing bin Laden was a good thing, think about it: are we better off with bin Laden alive, or dead? " - garage mahal

You mean as opposed to being a political prop for Obama?

Frankly OBL ending up in a shithole in Pakistan watching videos of himself while his three wives couldn't be arsed to actually keep the place from turning into a pigsty is actually rather more amusing than OBL dead.

Sure OBL being dead is nice. But OBL living a life of utter futility and quiet desperation isn't much of a drawback.

In an astonishing way it seemed to me that OBL was turning American. All that is needed is an addiction to HSN or QVC and a desperate desire to collect ceramic figurines hawked on those shows or some culinary toolset from Wolfgang Puck. It boggles the mind that OBL might have been induced to turn the rest of AQ in for an exchange of a jumbo size bottle of illict viagra.

I honestly think Obama is back on cocaine. From the last few weeks he has just gone nutso.

Think about it. He used it in college and sold it and the pressures off office and now running for re-election must be huge, especially with the economy, gas prices, Afghanistan war, USSS scandal, GAO scandal, 'green technology' scandals, Fast and Furious scandal, etc...

I was perfectly willing to give full credit to the president for the killing of Osama. But the NYTimes Panetta memo changes all of this. It now appears that the credit truly goes to Admiral McRaven. It was he who issued the kill. Obama would have blamed him if the mission had gone wrong. But he took the credit when it went right.

W Bush remarked more than once that he would leave it to future historians to judge him and his administration-- it's not something he himself could or would presume to do.

What an idiot. Obama, of course, is much more perspicacious and farsighted: he can and does presume to evaluate himself and his administration, even in medias res. As he said in his 60 Minutes interview (a quote which, for some inexplicable reason, was excised from the 60 Minutes TV broadcast, but was included in the full interview posted online):

The issue here is not going be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we’ve got a lot more work to do.

NB: "against any president-- with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln." Wow! No false modesty there. Eat your heart out, Washington, Jefferson, Teddy, Reagan, et al. But then, Obama knows himself and the extent of his abilities better than most men. I.e., he knows that he'd be better at almost everything than almost anyone. As Jody Cantor puts it in her book (p. 66):

Obama had always had a high estimation of his ability to cast and run his operation. When David Plouffe, his campaign manager, first interviewed for a job with him in 2006, the senator gave him a warning: “I think I could probably do every job on the campaign better than the people I’ll hire to do it,” he said. “It’s hard to give up control when that’s all I’ve known.” Obama said nearly the same thing to Patrick Gaspard, whom he hired to be the campaign’s political director. “I think I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Obama told him. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

So perhaps Obama is perfectly justified to brag about and take all the credit for the "gutsy call" of killing Bin Laden. Whatever role other people played in the operation-- the Bush administration, intelligence officials, Panetta, the actual operational decision-makers like Admiral McRaven, the Seals, etc.-- Obama's grateful for everything they did, but that's just because Obama can't do it all! If Obama could do it all, he'd probably have done it all even better. After all, he's the One.

That was good to know. It explain how the guy who did not even vote as a senator, so not to spoil his political prospects, could take decision on something that could potentially go so wrong. So now I know he let somebody else to take decision and only takes all the credit for it.

I did not believ I could think of Obama even worse than I've thought, but I was wrong. He has not a shred of integrity. It's frightening to think what he can do if he need not worry about re-election.

In other words, my Latin(?) is limited to what I remember from my days as an alter boy..."Et nomine Domini, et Filii, et Spiritu Sancti"? Maybe? It's been a long long time since I been in a church. Literally, the last time I was in one, I was stricken down with a ruptured tumor, and I haven't been back.

Quaestor said...gadfly wrote:Osama bin Laden, the terrorist genius created in our minds by the CIA...

The point of being a gadfly is to write something with sting in it, to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable -- not to write something that makes us think you're just another credulous doofus with broadband.

Questor is exactly right. I need to become more of an asshole, but there doesn't seem to be much room left on this blog for another commentator to assume that role.

Ahhh, yeah, I actually think you have to be the leader of a government to be considered the leader of a government.

Look at it this way, Would you consider Rush Limbaugh a leader in our government? Or a better example would be Jim Jones. He had a following too. One that would die for him. Was he a leader of a government? No. He was a nut job. So was UBL. There are no uniformed soldiers for AQ (they are illegal combatants, and as such should be summarily executed on the battlefield when captured) That's what's supposed to happen to prevent this sort of BS. Only we have CinC's that are pussified. Hearts and minds, and all that bullshit. The Army isn't supposed to win hearts and minds... that's what the diplomat's are for, but since the diplomats are at best a bunch of feckless leftards, it's up to the Army to clean up their mess too.

The Army is supposed to have 1 job. And that job is to kill the other army so that they can no longer make war on us. Period dot end of sentence.

Kill them and get the eff out. and if the stupid SOB's who started shit in the first place want help rebuilding, then they can effing ASK for it. It's not to be given gratis... Remember, we don't start the wars we just end them.

Unless you're a Democratic President, then you can do whatever the fuck you like, the MSM will cover for you.

The ad that I saw had B. Clinton in it, what was it, 4 times? on Fox, pardon me Faux, I never actually watched it once all the way through, there are three remotes after all, I just changed the batteries in one of them yesterday so it's a thing that's kept up, but honestly, why would they show that over and over on each of their shows? They piss me off. That crackly breaking voice pisses me off. Who is he talking to? Me? No, not me. Is he talking to you? How convincing do you imagine an ad like would be for anybody at all? Like, "Oh Jeeze I was thinking about voting for Romney but now that I've see this ad with Clinton suggesting Romney wouldn't have offed Bin Laden, well, I'm swayed." Then I pick up the nearest inanimate object, a pencil, and say, "this pencil," *waves the pencil around* "could have made the decision instantly."

Ahhh, yeah, I actually think you have to be the leader of a government to be considered the leader of a government.

You don't need to lead a government to be a political leader.

Yes, Rush Limbaugh is a political leader. His influence isn't formalized as a part of the government, but real. He influences voters. So were Martin Luther King Jr. and Louis Farrakhan. So is Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson. So is Richard Trumka. These are people who aren't in government but lead and rally those whose subsequent votes affect the government. They are political leaders, if not outright politicians.

Why does the Pope have a state, come to think of it? As small as it is, it used to encompass the bulk of Europe and was comingled with the states ruled by kings. So much for not winning "hearts and minds".

The rest of your misogynist screed follows the predictable tone. It basically translates into telling me that you are one hard penis. And that vaginas are bad. I get it. I mean, I don't really get it, but I'm familiar with it. Strange sentiment, but a common one among your ilk. Sad, but that's life. I guess.

I'm wondering which woman in your life hurt you with her vagina. Was your own birth an event that you resent? /sarc

Thank you Yashu :-) Still missing the reference though. I mean I know of the Iliad, and the Odyssey, and I've heard of Virgil from Dante but my classical education is what I could scrounge for myself here in Bugtussel.

Not really Bugtussel, but I've been by it. Rabbit Hash, a real town here on the river has a dog for a mayor... he's won re-election for several years. It sounds cute, but think about it.

And my steps son's wife...she has an aunt that was purchased for 20 goats. I shit you not. HER(stepsons wife) step father is illiterate. As in has to look at the picture on the can of peas to know its a can of peas.

Education sucks here. Thank God for Mississippi.

On the other hand we do have a big horse race coming up. We got that going for us. Nothing better than to have thousands of sophisticated people from around the world come to this state and marvel that we actually wear shoes...sometimes.(Did I mention the hats? Google it in Images)

When its really really cold.

And we take the time to put them on.

I myself have gone out barefoot in the snow just because I didn't want to bother with fooling around with shoes.

The most favorable quote, other than an Obama press secretary is this:

"Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University specialist in presidential communication, said it was not surprising that Mr. Obama would use the Situation Room to argue his case. “When they are running for re-election, presidents favor discussions of their successes,” she said. “The killing of Bin Laden is a natural item for President Obama to highlight.”

Ms.Martha works for The Center for American Progress Action Fund. A George Soros funded "think tank" and the source of the Think Progress blog.

Some might think it unethical to present her as "a specialist in presidential communication."

I would say more but Obama/Shaft might kill me. With his bare hands. He's a bad Mother Fucker so I'll shut my mouth.

I wanted to respond to my friend garage with a video of Pet Shp Boys DJ Culture but they all seem unavailable. So we will make do with just the lyrics.

(Attention! Attention! Trente-neuf, quarante)Imagine a war which everyone wonPermanent holiday in endless sunPeace without wisdom, one steals to achieveRelentlessly, pretending to believeAttitudes are materialistic, positive or frankly realisticWhich is terribly old-fashioned, isn't it? Or isn't it?

(DJ Culture) Dance with me(DJ Culture) Let's pretend Living in a satellite fantasy Waiting for the night to end(DJ Culture DJ D)

Let's pretend we won a warLike a football match, ten-nil the scoreAnything's possible, we're on the same sideOr otherwise on trial for our livesI've been around the world for a number of reasonsI've seen it all, the change of seasonsAnd I, my Lord, may I say nothing? (DJ Culture) Dance with me (DJ Culture) Let's pretend Living in a satellite fantasy Waiting for the night to end (DJ Culture) (DJ Culture) Dance with me (DJ Culture) Let's pretendLiving in a satellite fantasy Wondering who's your friend (DJ Culture)Now as a matter of prideIndulge yourself, your every moodNo feast-days, or fast-days, or days of abstinence intrudeConsider for a minute who you are (consider/who you are)What you'd like to change, never mind the scars (change)Bury the past, empty the shelf (bury the past)Decide it's time to reinvent yourself (it's time)Like Liz before Betty, she after SeanSuddenly your missing, then you're rebornAnd I, my Lord, may I say nothing? (DJ Culture) (DJ Culture) Living in a satellite fantasy Waiting for the night to end (DJ Culture) Dance with me(DJ Culture) Let's pretend Living in a satellite fantasy Wondering who's your friend (DJ Culture) And I, my Lord, (DJ Culture) May I say nothing? Living in a satellite fantasy Waiting for the night to end (DJ Culture)(Attention! Attention!)

@yashu.By the time of Augustus, the mythic poetic tale was perhaps an item. Augustus having gotten where he was in an extralegal armed struggle in which the seizure of property from murdered potential critics, for instance Cicero, and with killing of rivals consolidated his role as imperator may have felt that some fitting 'tradition' or bunting was called for. So the cynic might say he was pleased to have 100 yards of it with the Aeneid to console those whose mores might be at loose ends. Into this we have Barack photoshopped in in his soldier outfit: breastplate, soldier skirt, and sword.

I was just about to speculate in a comment to Carnifex about what your reference might signify (e.g. in in response to Carnifex's wonderful epic synopsis of secret American history @10:56). But I'd scarcely plumbed the significance of it. I can totally see it. The sad thing is-- even with an MSM totally willing to sing their hearts out for the sake of Obama, he still can't resist being his own Virgil. After all, he knows that he's better at it than they are!

Carnifex,

Love your description of the environs and mores of Bugtussel. As strange and parochial it may seem, I bet it's got nothing on the parochiality of the culturally isolated backwater of my neck of the woods, circa Berkeley/ San Francisco CA USA.

(Seriously, I really really want to visit Kentucky-- I assume you're in Kentucky?-- someday; tops on my travel wish list is a serious long-drawn-out William Egglestonian road trip through the south. And the Kentucky derby, yes! I love horses more than almost anything.)

I mean, I'm impressed as hell by our various special forces teams (SEALS et al). But, uh, does anyone ACTUALLY think there is an American President who *wouldn't* order the capture/death of bin Laden upon finding him? It seems like a no-brainer.

I know Team Obama is test-driving the "Romney would have wussed out" meme, but... yeah, no.

Plus, nobody BUT Obama seems to ever talk about it. I think a lot of people had kind of forgotten about bin Laden by the time we actually got him. I hadn't, but most people had totally moved on from 9/11.

Adding to that, the funny thing is persons who really have killed other people seldom brag about it. Truth be told, there are several articles, and some video, of hard pressed soldiers who've compartmentalized it all, and flat out say " it don't mean nothing" ... a common phrase in the vernacular in my war.

I don't know if Obama actually mouthed the words "I killed Osama" or whatever, rather than spokes-drones, but with his affection for the first person singular, I'd not be surprised. Clinton? Never came close to killing anyone, camped out in England and Russia during Vietnam, in fact, so like a little kid watching science fiction he's real ready to yak on and on about it in juvenile macho mode. lack of experience at something does that to you when you want to strike a pose.

I know a lot of guys who have killed enemies, and never heard one for them brag about it, let alone mention it short of a direct question, and even then, demurring a bit. If you have to brag or even mention your part in killing people, chances are very good you've never been there, done that, and have no tee shirt.

The "Romeny would have wussed out" meme is silly. No way to know that, it is pure projection, perhaps of the speakers own wussy tendencies.

Chances are pretty good, based upon Romney's previous executive experience, Romney would have delegated the decision to military leadership once the "policy" had been established. If asked, by the informed commanders, I doubt Romney would have intervened in an already approved operation. The Commander in Chief doesn't direct tactical operations, unless they're Jimmy Carter, in Operation Eagle Claw...a costly failed attempted rescue where the combined arms were left uncoordinated and Carter conducted the operation as the "six" himself.

Frankly, much as I dislike Obama, I think he is smarter than to really attempt a Carter emulation. Obama is too good at buck passing and he'll only take credit for successes ... throwing anyone who works for him under the bus for failures ... as the prissy Eric Holder is about to find out as November nears.

OBL was already dead for years before. No body, No pics, DNA only says it was a member of OBL family, no direct interview w/ supposed "wife" witness, House demolished, ST6 murdered, high tech helicopter given to Paki as coverup cost, timing (to deflect BC controversy) Please, are you all that gullible? More political theater of the Usurper(born British of a British subject father).

"Before you get the idea that killing bin Laden was a good thing, think about it: are we better off with bin Laden alive, or dead? "

What a stupid question, Garage.

I know it's evidence-free orthodoxy on the shallow left that killing terrorists only makes more terrorists, but sane people know that hunting your enemy to the end of the earth and killing him in a hole surrounded by his porn stash (or his mistress Eva Braun) tends to significantly increase the proportion of people who think he and his cause is a loser.

And even if it didn't, it's well worth doing just on general principles.

My take is that it is indeed always too bad when our politics, as it so often does, devolves into a pissing contest over who is better at killing people. Even worse how reflexively we seem to think it some sort of positive masculine trait, to kill human beings and order the deaths of human beings.

bagoh20: you and I seem to disagree about most everything when it comes to politics. However, I want to tip my cap to you because you always write sincerely and with a high sense of life and its possibilities and tragedies and you seems like one of those people that it is nigh impossible not to like.

Thank you for writing this:

"As soon as someone brags about having killed a man, regardless of how justified, the first thing that comes into your head is that it's uncouth because it's still killing a man.

At least it should, and if it doesn't you should be asking why not."

Thai is beautifully said.

Anyway, back to the squabble. Someone else wrote this:

"Does anyone doubt that if the mission had gone sideways Oblahblah would have shoved the Navy Seals and everyone in the chain of command under the bus?"

Hah.That works both ways, because it is 100% guarantee that people on these commenter boards would have been throwing ALL the blame on Obama, had the mission "gone sideways." I suppose that's just how them there thangs work.

Conor wrote:

"Obama can kill all the terrorists he wants, but it doesn't change the fact that he is an effete, metrosexual, pansy ass."

Read that sentence closely, if you're on the few on here capable of close reading anyway. What you see in the quote above reflects Althousian conservatism when it is at its worst, in a nutshell.

Sigh. If only he cleared brush in front of cameras and said manly things like "now watch this drive." You know, like a real man.

I have a bad feeling about the bin Laden raid. Obviously, I am not mourning bin Laden, but I have this suspicion that the SEALs were told to be sure to arrange to kill bin Laden, as bringing him back alive would cause the White House no end of embarrassment with Eric Holder and the DoJ. No way to prove it, one way or the other, since nobody's word can be trusted in such a matter, but the suspicion won't go away.And no one in the U.S. government should ever order the assassination of anyone - not even bin Laden - for such a reason.

The other thing that could have been done perhaps, would have been an undercover operation to photograph and perhaps even record this pathetic old man sitting in this squalid dilapidated compound next to a Pakistani military base watching pornographic movies on a 15" TV set, and publicize it for all the world to see.

Hagar - Part of the problem is you have absorbed the meme that war is just an extension of the criminal justice system and the place to resolve the fate of enemy...ideally...is in our Majestic Courtrooms that will resolve all war matters.

You think if possible, all enemy deserve their day in court, the best lawyers that US taxpayer money can buy for them. And enemy can be well sorted into the innocent, and those guilty of some violation of Law...not even their own laws...but our alien, distant laws.That is lunacy."Lawyers have final authority in all matters"That is lunacy.

We are so choked on lawyers with their fingers in everything that the US is ossified, all decisions on the economy, war move at lawyers speed.Given that, the call to remove the fate of bin Laden from a 20-year long "lawyers show" was a good one.

No such thing, C4,I am saying that nothing would destroy the legend of Osama bin Laden as effectively as exposing him to daylight.

Also, from his point of view, the worst possible fate to befall him, perhaps with the exception of being sent to the Hague to die of old age and boredom while being prosecuted for "crimes against humanity" in the World Court.

The chest thumping is pretty funny considering that Jarret pushed responsibility for the op and the "go" call down to Panetta, hoping that the burden (and potential scapegoating for failure) would rein him in.

Obama wasn't even aware of the OP until it had been launched. Great leadership there... and typical of pattern you see with such "leadership", taking credit for the risk and work of others.

Even @Harrogate gets it (surprising me, pleasantly) with his praise and thanks to @baghoh20 for these lines:

"As soon as someone brags about having killed a man, regardless of how justified, the first thing that comes into your head is that it's uncouth because it's still killing a man.

At least it should, and if it doesn't you should be asking why not."

That is the ultimate truth, trust me. Or trust one of my best friends, with far more combat experience than I, who periodically asks that very question. We spend a fair amount of time together in a wilderness area when I can get away ... and combat topics almost never get broached. When they do, it is always just between us. What's to say?

I thank @baghoh20, too, for those words cited & quoted above. They are the truth.

They pull back their own curtain: the "left-wing" heart is blood-thirsty. Regardless of its race of residence, the "leftist heart cries out for annihilation of all and sundry, in rivers of blood, while beating its chest and thighs, exulting over carnage wrought.

Misery and destruction expand the "leftist" heart with profound glee, confirming its feeling of superior power and provenance.

It is not a type of race or culture, nor of politics. It is a type of heart. It's ancient Indo-Aryan name is rakshasa. It is not a human heart. It is widely present during this epoch of history.

Well it's not much , but I'll take it. Of course Ritmo, that m'ass'ter psychologist would call it a Freudian slip.

As far as the later comments go, my experience with guys who served in Viet Nam follow a similar path. I know one guy, young looking ginger guy, kinda small, very funny, never even mentioned being there in my presence. Another mutual acquaintance filled me in that this funny little guy was the best "tunnel rat" their unit had.

For the younger crowd, the Vietnamese have been tunneling underground for millinia because they were in almost constant warfare. So the Viet Kong would hang out in these tunnels during down time. Someone had to go into these tunnels to clear them out.You have to be a certain kind of crazy to even THINK about going into a hole that you have no idea how many enemy are waiting for you in the dark.